The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced the initial names as it created its CEO Innovation Council, intended to look into developments in derivatives market structure, particularly around tokenization, crypto and blockchain technology.
Prominent crypto industry CEOs such as Gemini’s Tyler Winklevoss, Kraken’s Arjun Sethi and Polymarket’s Shayne Coplan will join CEOs from flagship companies including CME Group, Nasdaq, Intercontinental Exchange and Cboe Group.
“I am grateful to the CEOs who have agreed to share their vision and experience with the commission as we prepare for the future and beyond,” Caroline Pham, acting chair of the CFTC, said in a statement. She said the group – whose names were gathered quickly over a two-week period – will focus “specifically on market structure developments in derivatives markets such as tokenization, crypto assets, 24/7 trading, perpetual contracts, prediction markets and blockchain market infrastructure.”
The full list of the new council is as follows:
- Shayne Coplan, CEO, Polymarket
- Craig Donohue, CEO, Cboe Global Markets
- Terry Duffy, President and CEO, CME Group
- Tom Farley, CEO, Bullish
- Adena Friedman, Chairman and CEO, Nasdaq
- Luke Hoersten, CEO, Bitnomial
- Tarek Mansour, CEO, Kalshi
- Kris Marszalek, CEO, Crypto.com
- David Schwimmer, CEO, LSEG
- Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Kraken
- Jeff Sprecher, CEO, Intercontinental Exchange
- Tyler Winklevoss, CEO, Gemini
Bullish is the parent company of CoinDesk.
The formation of the CEO group is the latest in a rapid series of crypto developments from the CFTC and Pham. The interim president is moving quickly to finalize the final priorities of her own crypto agenda. This week, the agency announced a pilot program for the use of crypto collateral in the derivatives market, which followed days after Pham’s announcement that Bitnomial (whose CEO is a board member) had launched leveraged spot cryptocurrency trading that she had personally encouraged as acceptable under U.S. derivatives laws.
These are expected to be the final days of his tenure as head of the agency, with President Donald Trump’s nominee, Mike Selig, expected to be confirmed as early as Wednesday by the Senate. Once he is sworn in, he will arrive amid the deluge of new crypto policy work orchestrated by Pham.
Although her interim presidency lasted less than a year, she made crypto policy a central task of the derivatives watchdog, responding to President Donald Trump’s directives to promote friendly digital asset policy to make the United States a leading global hub. Likewise, Trump’s Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins has also devoted much of his bandwidth to his agency’s program known as Project Crypto.
